Podcast - How I became an ultra runner with asthma
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the athlete with asthma show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner endurance athlete. And yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer, nor run a marathon, let alone 100 K ultra. I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Today I'm going to talk about how I became an ultra distance runner [00:01:00] with asthma. My journey started when I was four years old. Growing up, I loved to play soccer. Soccer was my favorite sport and still is my favorite sport to play. My parents got me into a lot of different team sports growing up.
I played basketball. I played baseball. I even played some tennis. We avoided football. I am grateful for that, at least American football we avoided, because my father had some major knee issues that came from playing American football. But soccer was my favorite of all of the sports. Well, when I was four, I [00:02:00] had been dealing with asthma for, four years of my life at that point.
Multiple doctors over the years had told me different things about limitations that I would have since I had asthma, well, I remember this one day I was in the doctor's office, four years old, and I really started getting into soccer. Now, what does soccer look like for a four year old? Well, it's really just a bunch of kids running after one another in a ball on a field. There's not really positions, games aren't very long at this point either.
But soccer in general is a highly cardiovascular sport. And, The games are long, at least as you get older, [00:03:00] games are 90 minutes long. Well, at four years old, I was told by my doctor at the time, Jonny, you will never be able to play soccer at a high level. You will never be able to be a runner. And even if you are able to do these things, you are going to always need In addition, it would be very good for you to take steroids for your lungs.
I was four years old. I'm probably not making any of these decisions on my own. I barely understood what the doctor was [00:04:00] saying. What I comprehended is, you're not going to be able to play the sport that you love, and I'm not going to be able to run around the playground without using my inhaler.
I wasn't thinking about doing marathons or anything longer than a marathon when I was four years old. The fun run at my school was about as much as I could conceptualize when it came to actually running something other than running around the playground.
So my parents had to explain to me what all this meant and They had to make the decision for me and to this day I am blessed to have the parents that I have. They've always looked out for me and They always looked for alternative ways of dealing with things So they weren't very happy When a doctor for the second, third, fourth, I don't know how many times my [00:05:00] parents were told to put me on steroids growing up, but it was more than just this occurrence.
My parents were never those to fix something with a drug. My mom actually went to study to be a nutritionist because of how passionate she is about the body health and wellness naturally so long story short, I never took steroids for my lungs. And I am blessed every single day for that decision. Even though for a while, I did use my inhaler frequently, before, during, and after any cardiovascular activities, or as I knew them, playing on the playground, or running after the soccer ball, ~or ~shooting a basketball, or [00:06:00] running around the bases in t ball.
I eventually~ ~was told by an alternative medicine doctor. that my best bet to transform and strengthen my lungs was to use my inhaler when my lungs needed it, not before they needed it. This is extremely important for who I am as an ultra marathon endurance athlete today. I was probably around eight or nine years old I was starting to use my inhaler way too frequently.
Because, I was told not to play soccer, and I was still playing soccer. And I was getting better at it. And I [00:07:00] was playing more of it. We were starting to have tournaments where you have multiple games in a day. So these really long games, I don't think they were 90 minute long games at this point, but they were longer than they were when I was four,
I was told. If I wanted to use my inhaler less, drumroll,
what I needed to do was use my inhaler less. But Jonny, what do you mean by that? Well,~ ~instead of using my inhaler before, during, and after a workout, or a cardiovascular activity like soccer or running on the playground, I was advised to not use it before. I was told, don't use it [00:08:00] until you need it.
I'm like, huh, that's very interesting. I don't know how I feel about that. You know, I'm like nine years old. But my parents explained it to me and it kind of made sense. Today how I like to explain it to people is if you hurt your ankle, if you have a sprained ankle and At first, when you have the sprained ankle, or let's say you tweak your knee, you probably need to wear some sort of a brace.
A knee brace, maybe you need to wrap your ankle, etc. Well, At first, this is very healing for your ankle or your knee because it needs the added stability. However, if you decide that for the rest of your life [00:09:00] you are going to wear that knee brace or wear that wrap around your ankle,~ ~your ankle will never fully recover.
It will not have to get to full strength because you're helping it.
Same with the knee. If you continue to wear a knee brace, you can actually Stop your knee from recovering at some point. At some point, you got to get rid of the knee brace. You got to get rid of the ankle wrap. You got to get rid of the training wheels. And it's the same thing I was told when it came to my asthma and my success as an athlete with asthma.
So I gave it a try. Next soccer practice, instead of taking the two puffs at the beginning of practice, I waited [00:10:00] until. 10, 15 minutes in. At that point, I started feeling asthma hit me, shortness of breath, much more breathy, little fatigue. And I was like, okay, this is probably a good time to take my inhaler.
Puff, puff. Then after practice, same thing. Did that for a week or so. Week or so later, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to increase the time that I don't use my inhaler. So I go from 10 to 15 minutes to 15 to 20 minutes. What did I realize? Well, I realized I could get through more of practice without my inhaler.
Did this for another couple weeks. Then I decided, you know what? I'm gonna wait half an hour. So I waited half an hour. And then I took the two puffs of my inhaler. Well, as you can see, I eventually got to the point.[00:11:00]
where I didn't even need my inhaler. This took something that in the fitness space we call progressive overload, where no matter what the muscle in your body is. the goal is to incrementally get 1 percent better over a period of time. So I eventually was able to play an entire 90 minute soccer game without using my inhaler.
Now I always had it with me, but I didn't use it unless I needed it. And hey, there were times When I would go real hard, be running really fast, that I would need it. There were times when we'd have multiple games in a day, multiple 90 minute games in a [00:12:00] day,~ ~and I was one of the better players. At one point, I was the best player on multiple teams I played on, so I didn't come out.
I didn't want to come out of the game. So, after two or three 90 minute games in a day, sometimes I would need my inhaler. Or, even more likely, if I was starting to get a little bit sick. To this day, when I am sick, If it gets real bad, I need my inhaler. Now the last time I had COVID, I think I only used it like one or two times.
First time I had COVID, I used it pretty frequently. So same thing, body adjusts. The key here, and the biggest takeaway, is to always have it with you. Your inhaler is your lifeline. You need to make sure you have your inhaler with you. Now, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a healthcare [00:13:00] professional. I am A lifelong athlete with asthma and everything I talk about on this channel comes from my experience.
So I have a disclaimer for you, it is in the description below this video. Always make sure that you talk to your medical professional. doctor or healthcare professional that serves you before doing anything that I talk about.
Like I said, I talk from my experience. Eventually I was playing soccer year round. I got rid of baseball and was playing soccer in the spring and fall. I really enjoyed playing basketball, so I kept basketball in the winter. But I also added indoor soccer. In the summer, I would do soccer camps. So literally, I was playing soccer year.
While at the same [00:14:00] time, my dad was a huge road biker. He would do 50, 60, 70, up to 100 mile rides. Even back to back. Days, he'd be doing these rides. One of them called Ride the Rockies, another one called the Courage Classic. He did these rides multiple times over the years. He absolutely loved it, and I really enjoy spending time with my father.
So growing up, he got me into biking, so we would bike together. Another ~very, very ~positive activity on my lung development and on my success as an ultra endurance athlete today. ~So I was a biker and as I grew up, I really enjoyed climbing uphill the same time ~I really enjoyed climbing uphill. Well, A little later in life, I was still playing soccer, still ~biking, ~biking on the weekends with my dad, starting to [00:15:00] bike on my own, starting to do some of these long rides as well, like the Copper Triangle, multiple times, 80 mile bike ride through the mountains of Colorado.
I did my first hundred plus mile bike ride with 10, 000 vertical feet, a little farther down south. ~and ~outside of Colorado Springs. It's basically what I did during college. I played intramural soccer, I had an injury in high school to my left knee that ~kind of ~kept me out of playing anything more serious ~than that. I'll talk about that in another video much deeper. I talk about that in other videos. So ~in college ~I was really, ~I was going to the gym.
I started to run a little bit and ~I ~was playing racquetball with friends. ~That ~racquetball is really, really good for your lungs. Now I definitely made sure to bring my inhaler with me at that point, but I was most serious about biking ~at this point ~and ~I ~was introduced to yoga. [00:16:00] I started going to free yoga classes ~all ~around town.
At the time, core power yoga was Newer than it is today. This is 15 years ago. ~Core Power Yoga was a lot newer to Core Power Yoga was a lot newer to the world 15 years ago. So, ~they had a lot of free classes at studios all over the city. ~And ~since I was in college, I was not gonna pay for a hundred dollar a month membership.
~I think that's about what it was. With the student discount. This wasn't gonna do it, ~so I just went to all these free classes. Started getting into yoga. Was biking at the time as well. ~Well, ~eventually, I went to a free yoga sculpt class. And for those of you who have never heard of yoga sculpt, yoga sculpt is the combination of vinyasa, flow yoga, in a semi heated room, some humidity, weights, cardio, and strength based [00:17:00] exercises.
To simplify it, it's really a high intensity interval training workout mixed with yoga, cardio, and strength. ~So ~I went to one of these classes and fell in love. It was ~also ~extremely tough, and ~I definitely, the first time through, needed my inhaler. Multiple times through, early on, ~I needed my inhaler, ~and ~I've seen other asthmatics in classes bring their inhalers and have it with them, and I recommend that for you as well.
Today, ~I, ~I bring my inhaler. I leave it. in my locker outside of class. The first time or until you feel comfortable and confident in these classes, definitely bring your inhaler in. Now I actually teach YogaSculpt and depending on when you're watching this video and ~depending on ~where you live, you may be able to catch one of my classes.
All you have to do is go to my website, athletewithasthma.com and go to my in person classes. ~And ~all of the [00:18:00] current classes, Yoga Sculpt, Regular Yoga, etc. are listed there. So definitely check that out.
Finished up college, got my MBA, and, ~uh, ~had a little bit of the post college partying syndrome. Basically that means that I continued partying as if I was in college for about 3 or 4 years after college. Well, I was still working out. Biking, doing yoga, throwing the frisbee with my dad. But I wasn't getting any better.
I wasn't getting any more fit. At least, I didn't feel like I was. People around me were like, Oh, Jonny, you're like the fitness God. ~You're this, you're that. ~But I just didn't feel like I was progressing. And a big part of that is because alcohol does have a effect on limiting your body from achieving what it can achieve [00:19:00] because the second alcohol enters your system.
Your body's number one goal becomes get the heck out of my system. ~Should ~I have another video on this channel all about that? Me and my friend Robbie talk all about alcohol's impact on athletic performance. So definitely go check that out. Well,~ ~one day I woke up, I was at a hot yoga class at core power and ~you know, ~I was semi hungover, but I was very functional in the class and I had a thought.
I was like, I wonder. How good I would be if I didn't party like this anymore. I'd probably be a lot better. ~Well, ~over the years I slowly cut alcohol out, cut the partying out, and today I very [00:20:00] infrequently drink. ~That's another story as well. ~When it comes to the progression of myself into a runner. There was another really important event that occurred around this time.
I was about 25, 26 years old. So it's about seven or eight years ago from when I'm recording this. ~I, ~even though I'm a Colorado native, grew up in Colorado, I have never at that time climbed a 14, 000 foot mountain. What is a 14, 000 foot mountain, or a 14er as we call them in Colorado? Well, in Colorado, depending on what list you look at, there are, ~let's see, ~let me search this to make sure.
Like I said, it's depending on what list. Between [00:21:00] 52 and I think 58 foot mountains in Colorado. Let's see. Yeah, so some lists say 58, others say 52, some say 54, some say 56. The point is there are somewhere between 52 and 58 14, 000 foot mountains in Colorado. And a very popular activity is for people to hike up these things.
They are the biggest mountains we have in Colorado, the biggest being ~Mount Elbert. Mount Elbert is almost 14, 500 feet. Let's see, ~Mount Elbert. Mount Elbert is 14, 439 feet above sea level. ~Mount Elbert feet above sea level. Wow. ~Growing up, I didn't really like hiking. I'm not sure why. My parents took me hiking.
I mean, today, I love hiking, but I'm not really sure why I didn't like it growing up. ~But I just didn't like it. ~I guess not enough action like a soccer game. [00:22:00] But when I discovered hiking up 14, 000 foot mountains, which I did when I was about 25 or 26 years old, one of my friends, Steven, introduced me, got a big group of us together, and was like, Hey, we're going to climb two 14ers in one day.
I'm like, what is that? And I learned 14, 000 foot mountains. This is what they are. And there's two that are, ~you know, ~within a couple hour drive of Denver that we were going to go and hike in one day. And he's like, don't worry, you don't have to do both. We're going to do one of them. And then if people feel up to it, we can do the second one.
If you don't feel up to it, fine. ~We'll just, ~Some people can do the second one if they want, but you don't have to. ~And I'm like, hmm. Well, ~I remembered growing up being told, ~Hey, ~I gotta be careful hiking, especially at high elevations, with my asthma. So I made sure that I packed my inhaler. ~Well, ~I remember the day we went.
There was a group of probably 15 of [00:23:00] us. And, uh, we're climbing up this mountain. And I also remember when I was a kid, my father and I would go to Glenwood Springs. And in Glenwood Springs, it's kind of this really small town in this canyon. Really small canyon, really small town.
Well, there's these hills. were mountains around Glenwood Springs. Now, they weren't too high because there were still trees at the top of them. Tree line ~is, really ~varies, but on these 14, 000 foot mountains, you're looking at like 2, 000 feet of no trees on average. So these mountains were not that big. But I remember pointing at some of these mountains, I'm probably like 15, and I'd be like, Dad, how long do you think it would be for me to run up that thing?[00:24:00]
And my dad would be like, ~you know, it, ~it could probably take you four or five, six hours. And I was like, what? It looks so close. It can't be that long. But I remember ~cause ~this happened on multiple of these trips where I was just like enthralled with like, it'd be really cool to be on top of that mountain.
~And ~when I was 25, about 10 years later, my dream came true. It was tough. ~I remember I took my inhaler. ~I took my inhaler while climbing Graze Peak. ~We're going up. ~I was not the first person on top. I think I was probably the fifth or sixth person to make it on top. So top third of the people I was hiking with.
But I remember when I got to the top, I was hooked. ~And. ~Some of the other people were tired and were not ready to climb Torrey's Peak, the peak right [00:25:00] next to it. But I was. I'm just like, there's no way I'm not climbing Torrey's. And by the way, I'm gonna be the first one to start doing it. And I was the first one to get to the top of Torrey's.
~And, and I was the first one to get on top of Torrey's Peak. ~The next day, I was the first person pushing. for the next 14er hike. So we went and we climbed Mount Albert a couple of weeks later, tallest 14, 000 foot mountain in Colorado. And then a couple of weeks later I planned from scratch the Mount Evans hike.
At this point it was pretty late in the season. So I picked a very small short route for everyone to do, but I made it happen because I was completely hooked. ~So, ~at the time, I was also biking, so I learned that you can bike to the top of a couple of these mountains. ~So, ~a year or two later, I actually biked to the top of Mount [00:26:00] Evans.
~It was a 28 mile climb. ~ It was a 28 mile bike ride. 8, 000 vertical feet of elevation gain. I bike to the top. In addition, instead of just doing one or two of these hikes a year, I was doing 10 of these hikes a year to the point where As of today, I have climbed more than 30 of these 14, 000 foot mountains, and I've climbed multiple of them multiple times.
Now, I'm afraid of heights. My mom's afraid of heights. I get vertigo when I'm ~very, ~very high up, and ~I ~feel very exposed. So, with that being said, there are about 20 of these mountains that I won't even touch. They're Much more technical hikes. They're very exposed. They're very dangerous. [00:27:00] And while a lot of people enjoy hiking them, I don't.
I get vertigo at the top. So, that's why I have capped myself at about 30, I think I've climbed about 32 of these peaks. And, I started climbing up 13, 000 foot mountains. Because I'm like, well, I'm not going to climb up that one, that one, and that one, and that one. Like Maroon Bells, Capitol Peak, Longs Peak, etc.
But I need something else to hike up. So I found out that there are 13, 000 foot mountains. There's a lot more of them in Colorado than 14, 000. How many 13ers in Colorado? There are 637 13, 000 foot mountains in Colorado. So I started hiking the safe 13, 000 footers. ~Well,~~ ~After a few years of doing this, a [00:28:00] lot of our friends got tired of hiking these things, which I don't blame them.
I don't blame them, because some of these mountains are very busy. Fourteeners are hard to climb, ~also, ~especially the first one of the season ~always is hard. ~Doesn't matter what shape you're in, the first one ~of the season ~is always tough. So, ~uh, You know, ~I'm like 28 at this point. And there's less of us doing this.
And when I say less, I mean, instead of 15 to 20 people going on a hike, there's like three of us and we wanted to do these things faster. So what would we do? We'd hike to the top and then we would run down. Well, eventually within a couple of years, it went from three of us doing it to. Three of us still wanting to do it, but it being really hard to coordinate our schedules, so I would Go by [00:29:00] myself.
I would do repeats of 14, 000 foot peaks, ~but I'd do them ~by myself, and I wanted to do them real quick So I would even start power hiking running up them and running down This is when I discovered trail running. At the same time, I was slowly transitioning from being a road biker to a mountain biker. I had done, ~uh, ~A couple races, duathlons, where you run like three to five miles, bike 20 to 30 miles, and then run another three to five miles. And after doing a handful of these and seeing a road biker get hit by a car, in addition to just how many bikers there are on the road and on the sidewalks, and my friend Steven introducing me to mountain biking, I I would much rather spend my time [00:30:00] on the trails, away from cars, and away from people, than on the roads.
So I was becoming a mountain biker. Also, my dad was biking a lot less. Got a couple more knee surgeries, hip surgeries, and really wanted to make sure that he protected his joints. So now, he rides the Peloton to this day. He doesn't get out on the road and bike. And, ~uh, ~that was the main reason why I was biking.
But mountain biking I fell in love with. So, while I was mountain biking, and I was climbing these 14, 000 foot peaks, and there were less of us climbing these 14, 000 foot peaks, so I started running up them and running down them with my friends and by myself. Running was slowly growing on me. In addition, I was never a big fan of mountain biking downhill. Some people, that's all they want to do is mountain bike [00:31:00] downhill. I really only cared about riding uphill. And ~then I ~was terrified whenever I would ~mount a ~bike downhill. ~And ~after going over the handlebars multiple times and getting away with ~very, ~very little injuries, just scrapes here and there.
And, ultimately getting a dog in 2021, I transitioned from being a mountain biker to a runner. But all of these years, 30 plus years of cardiovascular activities ~that I did, ~ranging from running ~around ~on the playground, playing soccer tournaments to biking to ~hiking above, hiking, ~hiking the largest mountains in Colorado.
All of this led me to being an ultra endurance athlete with asthma and getting a [00:32:00] dog pushed that over the top, ~because to be fair, when I first, because even though, because~ even though I've seen people train their dogs to mountain bike with them, it just isn't as convenient as grabbing your dog and going to take a run.
So, At first, when the transition was happening, I would try and mount a bike and run. But eventually, I'd get tired of getting ready for a bike ride when it's so easy to go running. So, I went from, you know, doing three mile runs, three, four times a week, to, hey, you know what, maybe I should try and run my first marathon.
~I know ~I was told, growing up, that I would never do any sort of running, ~but this is my chance to do something that ~But this is my opportunity to not only spend time with my dog, ~but to train for, ~but to train for something that was looked at as impossible [00:33:00] to a four year old child who was told he would never run.
and never play soccer without using an inhaler.
so during COVID I ~also ~got a Peloton and ~I ~was doing a lot of indoor cycling and spinning classes. I also discovered that Peloton had their own marathon training program. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to try it out on the app, download the workouts.
And it took me through an 18 week training program. This is in 2021 not Too long ago, I never ran more than six or seven miles. So as I progressed through the program, every time I would hit a new milestone running eight miles, nine miles, 10 miles, I got very emotional because I felt like I was pushing the envelope.
I was doing something that I was told that I couldn't [00:34:00] do. All the way up. to running my first marathon on August 1st, 2021. It's my first marathon. It was not an official marathon. It was my own self made marathon and it was brutal. It took me, I believe, six and a half hours to complete because 16 miles in my right hip cramped up real bad and I was limping for the next I ran a little bit, but I eventually was able to pull myself together and run the last mile and a half.
And that's been a pattern for me throughout my running career, ~is ~I'm mentally able to pull myself together at the end of races to give it my alL even though I felt pretty [00:35:00] terrible after that first marathon, I knew I wanted to run an official marathon and that was really what I was testing the training program for, but I loved the training program so much. I'm like, you know what? I don't have a marathon coming up, but I'm going to do the 18 weeks of training anyway.
Well, In October 2021, I ran my first official marathon, the Colfax Marathon, and finished it in four and a half hours. I felt so much better than I did on August 1st when I ran my first marathon in 2021. And I knew I would because once you've done something once, remember progressive overload, once you build up your lungs once for something and you keep pushing yourself, you're able to do better and better and better.
So that really brought me into what would it look like to run [00:36:00] more than a marathon? And how would the four year old version of Jonny feel? Not only running two marathons, but running a 50k, a 50 miler, a 100k, a 100 miler and beyond. ~Well ~at that time there was no conceptualizing 100 milers for me. I could start conceptualizing a 50k, that was only 5 more miles than a marathon.
So a few more months. In early 2022, I did my first self made 50k race. And I ran it as fast as I ran my original marathon. That was in April 2022. Rest of 2022 I dedicated to getting ready for the Honolulu Marathon in December. And [00:37:00] at the time I was kind of using running as an excuse to just eat whatever I wanted. I wasn't keeping track of calories, I was just eating. Now I was eating relatively healthy because my significant other, Was cooking most of my meals.
We'd go over to my parents house on the weekends. And my mom, ~like I said, she's ~a nutritionist, was cooking my meals as well. We weren't eating out very much. ~I mean, this is still, you know, early stages of post pandemic.~ But when ~I went and ~I did the Honolulu Marathon in December of 2022, I finished it, but it took me longer to do the Honolulu Marathon at sea level than it did for ~me to do ~the Colfax Marathon at a mile above sea level, and that was a year earlier.
I was thinking I was going to run it faster, but I ran it slower. I did it in five hours instead of four and a half. ~Well, that's ~I figured out pretty quickly that not only did my speed go down and my time [00:38:00] increase, my weight had increased significantly. ~Now ~throughout my life I've had these fluctuations of weight loss and gain.
~Well ~pre college I weighed about 150 pounds, then I went into college on my own, eating dorm food, drinking. Not taking care of myself as much post college did a little bit of that But at this time I was actually taking pretty ~darn ~good care of myself I was running I was eating healthy, but I still weighed just under 200 pounds.
I know this because I ~went and ~got a yearly physical After my Honolulu marathon ~and they weighed me ~and I weighed 195 plus pounds. I was very confused. I'm like, but I'm a runner. [00:39:00] But during the marathon, I ~also ~saw people that were a couple hours ahead of me ~on the run. ~They were going to finish the marathon in three hours while I was finishing in five and they just looked different than me.
Well, I wouldn't at least at that time look at myself as overweight. In retrospect, I was definitely overweight. I was not. built like these people. And I was hoping to run a 50 mile race the following September, ~September 2023. ~And I felt terrible after the Honolulu marathon. ~And ~I told myself I will never again feel this bad in a race.
I want to be faster because ~also ~if I'm going to run This marathon is so slow. It's gonna take me 15 plus hours to run the 50 miler. I only had 15 hours to do it. [00:40:00] So what did I do? ~Well, ~I started working with my favorite yoga instructor and very good friend ~of mine, ~Robbie Hall. I was doing yoga sculpt here and there at this point, but I started doing yoga sculpt frequently.
Spent a lot of time with Robbie. Learned how to track my calories. Learned how to work with an accountability partner. Robbie is my accountability partner to this day. One of multiple accountability partners that I have. And learn how I could still eat what I like by budgeting my calories for the week instead of just eating to eat. ~So, ~long story short, I ended up losing 40 plus pounds. Today I weigh 152 pounds. Pretty amazing. Back to pre college days. ~What? ~I initially ended up losing about 35 pounds. I got down [00:41:00] to 160 pounds, ran my 50 mile race in September that year.
In addition, ~because ~this is just what happens when you train for a 50 mile race. I ran a marathon on July 22nd, 2023. It was marathon one for training. Then on August 20th, I ran my second marathon for training. On September 9th, I ran my 50k for training
and then on September 23rd, 2023, I ran my first 50 mile race. It took me a little over 13 hours to complete it. I was pumped. I was so excited when I finished that race. It was the biggest athletic milestone of my life. I went from being told I would never run as a kid, to completing a 50 mile race. ~Now at the time, I got I don't know, I finished, right? ~I wasn't even in the top half of finishers, but I finished. [00:42:00] I was so excited. And that day, I actually wrote a note to myself. Let's see if I can find the note. Here it is. This is what I wrote. on September 23rd, 2023. I feel extremely accomplished from my 50 mile run.
I finished the race exactly how I wanted to, by sprinting the last seven miles and having the best significant other parents and friends ~in general ~there at the finish. I now would like to shift my focus on other athletic endeavors. I have zero interest in running another 50 mile plus race, and I'm not sure how I feel about doing marathons and 50 Ks anymore ~as well.~
Instead, I would like to focus on yoga and other shorter athletic events. I am very proud of myself and ready to open up a new season of my [00:43:00] athlete with asthma life.
I can't believe I wrote this. I remember when I wrote this. I was in the car driving home. I wasn't ~driving. Someone else was ~driving. Tatian was driving. ~But ~I was driving home from this 50 mile race and even though I finished it, I was in a lot of pain. I couldn't walk for about 24 hours. I was crawling around our condo.
And yeah, I did not want to run a 50 mile race again. ~I hit it. ~I hit the milestone. I told the naysayers of my childhood and throughout my life. I did it. Asthma did not prevent me. I didn't even use my inhaler doing that race. I did it and I'm not going to do it again. Well, a few days later, I started feeling a lot better.
I went to my first yoga sculpt class, about 48 ~hours. I went to my first yoga scope class, I think 48 or 72 ~hours after that race. [00:44:00] And~ ~I had a really good friend who was signed up for a marathon later in the year. ~And ~I told him that I would run the marathon with him. Now, he lives in Roswell, New Mexico though.
So I told him, you know what? I'm just going to run 26. 2 miles the same day as you. I'm not going to go down there ~and, ~and do the marathon. Cause for me, it's never been about the metals. I just like hitting the distances. So I was like, you know what? I'll do it. ~And ~he's like, okay, race is December 9th. I'm like, great.
It's in my calendar. I'm going to do it. Hopefully there's not a bunch of snow on the ground. ~Well, ~before December 9th, 2023. I started getting the itch again for another athletic endeavor. So I came up with what I call ~the core power ultra marathon, ~the core power ultra marathon on November 4th, 2023. [00:45:00] I decided I was going to run 26.
2 miles plus do two yoga sculpt classes, one taught by my friend Robbie and the other ~one taught ~by my friend Shane. ~How it was set up is ~Robbie taught at 10 30 AM and Shane ~taught ~at 1 30 PM. So what I would do is run from my house to the yoga studio. It's about 10 miles. Do the first class, then run about six miles in between classes.
Okay. Do the second class, and then run home. So I packed everything I needed, ~and I went ~and started executing it. And the great thing is, there's a Whole Foods right next to the CorePower Yoga Studio as well.~ So I was able to get some fueling there. ~So I was ~also ~able to get some fuel there. ~Well, ~I finished it in eight hours.
So I did two yoga school classes and ran a marathon in eight hours. I felt amazing. I was ready to do another one of these. I was ready to do the [00:46:00] core power ultra marathon 50 K where I do the same thing, but run 50 kilometers instead of just a marathon. So run a total of 31.
1 miles instead of 26. 2. Well before that, I had to do this December 9th marathon with my friend. It snowed about a foot of snow the night before I was supposed to run this marathon. And I told myself, you know what, I can just run the roads. Or I can just run the sidewalk. But instead, I was like, why would I do that? I love running trails. One of my favorite things to do is running in the snow on trails.
So I was like, you know what, I'm going to run in the snow. ~So on December 9th, 2023, I ran my, ~so on December 9th, 2023, I ran my winter trail marathon and it was amazing. Took me about six hours. Took me the same amount of time to run my winter snowy marathon as it did for me to run my [00:47:00] first marathon ever.
And it was at this point when I was like, I'm going to run a hundred kilometers next September. I don't know what happened, but how I felt after my 50 miler something changed in me the night of I was in so much pain. I'm like, there's no way I'm doing this again. I was also like this took way too much training. But coming back to progressive overload, I had already done 50. I had done it once. I could do it again, and I could feel better doing it again.
So I was like, you know what? I can add 12 miles to my 50. And~ ~I ultimately decided to work with a running coach this time around. I'm like, I'm going to do the a hundred K I'm going to set up my own training program, but really I should probably [00:48:00] hire a running coach. I didn't know who the heck I was going to hire at this point.
Didn't know where to go, but there was this amazing individual named Brandon who Tatiana and I had seen running multiple times by where we live while we're taking walks with our pup, sometimes taking runs and we'd see him and we'd say hi to him. Well, after doing this for about a year, we finally introduced ourselves or honestly, he's such a nice guy.
He probably introduced himself first. I'm like, Oh, so nice to meet you. We talked a bit and, ~uh, After, then ~after a few more meetings like this ~where we were running, ~we actually ran together. And then I eventually found out that him and his wife own a training company called Run Infinite. And I looked up their website and I [00:49:00] saw their resumes and I'm like, First of all,~ ~they're amazing runners.
Brandon and his wife, Caitlin, are amazing runners. Second of all, they're humble runners. Had no idea what kind of runners they were, until I looked at their website and I was like, they're the real deal. They are like some of the best runners in the country. ~So, uh, ~I was like, what the heck? I need a trainer.
I want to take this seriously. I don't want to feel like I did after the 50 miler. I felt like giving up. I was never gonna do it again. I'm like, if I'm gonna do it again, I don't want to feel like that. Just like when I finished the Honolulu Marathon, I was like, if I'm gonna run again, I'm gonna do it again.
I don't want to feel like that. So about six months out from my hundred K I called up Brandon and I'm like, I'm ready to work with you guys. And he was like, ~Hey, I, ~my schedule is full. I also don't take on [00:50:00] as many clients as Caitlin. But Caitlin is available to take on additional athletes if you want to work with her.
~And ~I'm like, great. I don't care who I work with. You both are amazing. I just want to work with the best of the best. So I started working with Caitlin and it was a bumpy six months of training, but at the beginning ~of training, ~I set some goals. First, I wanted to finish my 100k race in less than 14 hours. This seemed really aggressive because the previous year I had finished 50 miles in 13 hours. So I was basically saying that I was gonna take just an hour to get an extra 12 miles in, but I'm like, You know what?
I'm gonna set the goal. Obviously, I had the goal of running a hundred kilometer. I had the goal of finishing the event and setting a personal record for my 50 mile. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I'm like, I want to run 50 miles faster than I [00:51:00] did last time. And I said, you know what? I was just below the top half of the field and my 50 miler.
I would like to be in the top half of the field for my 100K So I set these goals well~ ~I had multiple health issues that came up. ~Um, ~Throughout training ~and ~I tell this story in a lot more detail in other videos on my channel so definitely check those out, ~but even with having something called a CRVO in my eye~ But even with having something called a CRVO occur in my eye and finding out that I have a PFO in my heart, I was able to make it through training.
And as we got closer and closer to race day, I started looking at times from last year. 100k finishing times. And I also had a memory from the 50 mile race that [00:52:00] stuck in my head. And it was this.~ ~Yes, I finished the 50 mile race. And yes, I didn't really compete, but I finished. Well, at the same time I was finishing my 50 mile race, there was another runner who was finishing his hundred K race and he had finished just before me.
And I ran some of the last couple of miles with him actually. ~ ~And he finished. somewhere around the 13 hour mark. And I finished my 50 miler and about 13 hours and 10 minutes or so. Well, this stuck out in my head because I was like, okay, a third place in 2023 of the a hundred K the bear chase a hundred K finished in just over 13 hours.
Then if [00:53:00] I finish in 12 ~hours ~or 13 hours, I could get third place. And I started thinking about this ~like ~a couple of months out from the race cause I was getting quicker. I was feeling stronger even though I had a knee issue I was dealing with all year too, but I started assembling an amazing team.
Caitlin, Caitlin and Brandon work with a top tier physical therapist that started working on my knee, strengthened up my knee and the amazing support of my significant other Tatiana, just. not only cooking me amazing food and supporting me and our family on all the long runs and all the runs that I did, she was actually running with me as well.
My parents, my friends, I was starting to assemble a heck of a team. My massage therapist, my chiropractor [00:54:00] were all helping me get to a place where I would not only feel 10 times better than ~I did ~at the end of my 50 miler, but I might ~be able to ~actually compete. And it was not until a week out when I ran my practice lap of the course.
So it's a 20 K course. Or twelve and a half miles. Run around the course, five laps was the whole run. The previous year, I ran four laps. That was the fifty mile version. ~And we ran together, ~Caitlin and I, ran the entire course. ~And we ran it ~in just over two hours. And this planted ~the seed. ~A new seed in my head, a seed of, okay, I think I can [00:55:00] actually finish this thing in 12 hours.
I might even be able to finish this thing faster. So I started looking at finishing times for the past, you know, three or four years. And depending on what year I looked, a 12 hour finish sometimes won it, sometimes would be top five. But I really started to visualize how I could actually compete. Now it's still crazy thinking, okay, I finished a 50 mile race and 13 hours.
How the heck am I going to finish 12 more miles and do it? faster.
Hey friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept [00:56:00] gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed.
So I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely anywhere. free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life to start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to Athlete with asthma dot com forward slash healthy dash living dash guide to grab your free copy.
Now, let's get back to the rest of the [00:57:00] show.
Remember, my initial goal was to do it in 14 hours, ~do it just a mile. It's just going to take me an hour longer. ~Now I'm talking about it taking ~me ~an hour less time, but my training was on point. I did a hundred mile a week as my peak week.
That was one of my goals ~was ~to run a hundred miles in a single week. One of my goals for next year is to run 250 miles in a single week. But what I've learned over my life as an athlete with asthma and ultra runner. Is once you do something once, it's easier the second time. ~And ~that's what I always tell myself when I'm hurting real bad in a training session or a race.
~Is, ~I'm pushing through today for the ease tomorrow. And I really leaned into that and visualization for this 100k race. ~Because, ~because realistically, ~I mean ~everyone was telling me ~they're like, ~How the [00:58:00] heck are you gonna run? 12 more miles in less time. ~Like ~how the heck are you going to run 100k 62. 2 miles in 12 hours when you ran 50 miles in 13 hours?
~I didn't know, ~I didn't know how it was going to go. I visualized it. I put it in the training. We clocked how fast I was going,
but I really started to believe visually by visualizing the trail, visualizing, competing, visualizing the goal that I could place in this race. So going from being. outside of the top half of the field to being in the top three of the field. And we strategized. Tatiana and I got two packs, two camelbacks, one that I [00:59:00] would always have on me and the other ~one ~she would have and fill with electrolytes, calories, and carbs.
Okay. That cut my time down significantly because I didn't have to actually fill my pack. ~Also, ~I told myself for the first few ~laps, first couple ~laps, I would avoid going to the aid stations and just fuel up. At the start finish line. So that's what I did. As it got hotter ~in the day, ~I knew I would need to go to the aid stations to fuel up, make sure I'm getting enough electrolytes, ultimately make sure I'm getting enough salt and really be successful.
In addition, Tatiana cooked for three days. My favorite carb and calorie intense meals, pizza, muffins, homemade bread, we made homemade hummus, homemade sun butter, she made potato [01:00:00] salad, made a couple other things as well. And we were ready. We had chairs set up, she was the head of my crew, we had it set up where Caitlin was gonna run the last lap with me, so the final 12 miles of the race with me.
Had everything in order. Had friends coming throughout the day. We planned out, hey it starts at 5. 30am, Jonny's gonna be done by 5. 30pm. It was all visualized, prepared for, and put into action. So we get to race day, and it was an emotional day. We had a very tough year, ~um, ~big loss in our family. ~Um, ~some medical issues, some other personal issues kind of going on throughout the year.
But that day, September 28th, 2024, the only thing that [01:01:00] mattered was this race. And it wasn't just me running it. It was all of us running. It was Tatiana and I running it. It was my friends running it, it was my coach running it, my support team running it, my massage therapist, my chiropractor, we were all running it.
I was the only one actually running it. We had all worked to this moment. The first lap finished in 2 hours and 4 minutes. The previous year, my first lap, I finished in 3 hours and 45 minutes. My second lap, I finished in 2 hours and 10 minutes. Previous year, my second lap, I finished in 3 hours and 45 minutes.
My third lap started to get hot. I finished in two and a half hours. Previous year, I got faster. That's two hours and forty five minutes. So I still beat it by fifteen [01:02:00] minutes. My fourth lap is my slowest lap. I finished it in just under three hours. Previous year, I finished it in about two hours and forty five minutes.
But then I had one more lap to go. ~Now, ~throughout the day, ~I ~I decided that during the morning, when it was cool outside, I was gonna hold a pace around 9 12 to 10 minute miles. So that's what I did. As it got hotter, I dropped to about a 10 minute mile. I was eating throughout the day. I was drinking a ton of water.
But even so, I wasn't drinking enough water. I hadn't gone to the bathroom in about 5 hours. And My left hamstring was cramping up ~real bad, ~real bad. It got to the point where it ~literally ~seized up and I was limping and I was about, ~I don't know, ~half a mile to a mile from the start finish line [01:03:00] to get help.
So I was pretty freaked out, called up my trainer and she asked me some questions. She's ~like, okay, well, She was like, how much, she was, she was like, she was ~like, how's your salt intake? And I'm like, well, ~you know, ~I haven't had any actual salt. It's just theoretically in my electrolyte mix. And she's like, okay, you need to get salt immediately.
You either need to get salt packets or pickle juice or something. Second of all, when did you last go to the bathroom? And I'm like, it's been like five hours and she's like, okay, you need to drink enough water to go within the next 30 minutes. And I'm like, okay, Roger that. And I told her, I'm like, Hey, I understand this, but I'm not at an aid station right now.
I have water so I can start doing that, but I can't walk right now. I can't, there's no way I'm going to run. And she's like, Hey, it's going to pass. Just work it out. Your hamstring is going to get better. Get to the aid station, get some pickle juice immediately. I'm okay. So I get to the aid station, I chug some pickle juice, [01:04:00] start drinking water ~like crazy, just ~like crazy.
I have some more pickle juice, have a kombucha. And I keep drinking water. Well, within the next half hour, I did use the restroom and I hit both aid stations on the next lap. This is lap four now. Okay. My sub three hour long lap hit the aid stations and at both aid stations I got salt and I was also cooling myself.
So I was putting water, I was pouring water on my head. It's putting on my neck. I was immersing my hands and my wrists inside a bucket of ice cold water, bringing my body temperature down. This was very necessary for the success I had on this day. ~The entire day I wasn't pet. ~Throughout the entire day I was only passed [01:05:00] by one 100k runner.
I was passed by multiple 50k runners and 50 mile runners because they were doing a shorter race. I was passed by one 100k runner. And he passed me at the end of the first lap. Besides that, I was slowly edging up the field. I started probably in 15th, and I slowly moved up. I was in 5th, 4th, 3rd. And I was in 3rd place going into the final lap.
Now, 1st place at this point looked completely out of reach. This ~one ~amazing woman named Lisa was just an hour plus ahead of me ~at this point. ~So I blocked that out of my mind. I'm like, there's no way I'm getting first. Second place was ~actually at the start finish line with me before, was actually ~at the start finish line with me before we ~actually ~[01:06:00] started our last lap.
It's the same guy that passed me nine hours earlier. at the end of the first lap. I've been chasing him all day ~and I was ~inching closer and closer. And then we were literally at the start finish line at the same time. Now we got there before me and he left before me, but I was told by Tatiana and my trainer, we're going to fuel up.
We're going to go out there. We're just going to run the pace that you've been running all day. Not going to do anything different. ~We're just going to keep up the pace you've been running, ~we're going to keep you hydrated, we're going to keep you cooled off. I had a bandana with ice around my neck to keep myself cooled off.
~And we're just going to go, and ~we're shooting for third place. We're just going to hold third. Maybe we'll gain a little bit, we're just going to hold third. And I'm like, fine, that sounds great. I really, I can't even believe I'm in third place right now, and I'm second overall male. This is crazy. Keep in mind, a year [01:07:00] prior, I'm never gonna race again.
There's no way I'm doing 50 plus miles again. I'm not even doing a marathon again. ~And think even a year before that, I wasn't even com And ~think a year before that, I was so slow in the Honolulu Marathon. I was 40 pounds heavier than I was for this race. It all came down to this final lap. I had knee issues all year, I had this eye issue, which prevented a lot of training early on.
I had this heart issue, which I was told I probably shouldn't even run in September. I was told by a ~doctor, ~very smart doctor, ~I was told, ~Yeah man, you're not going to be running in September. I was like, you know how many times I've been told that in my life, that I'm not going to be able to do something?
Well, going into my final lap, that reverberated through my mind. As I was told, back in June, [01:08:00] there's no way you're going to be running 100k in September. You probably shouldn't even run these things anymore. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do it. And, we went out strong. So after about five, 10 minutes of refueling, we left the start finish line, started heading down the course. It was tough. I was pretty tight. This was the longest break I took all day, but I needed it. I ate two pears, had some more pickle juice, had some salt, got everything on me ready to go. I had ice in my shirt.
Around my neck, all these things. So I was a little stiff. So we started pretty slow, probably ~like a 13 or 12 minute mile. So I started pretty slow, ~like a 13 or 12 minute mile. Well, slowly started to pick it up and then we got really close to the main hill on the course. Now I train in this park year round [01:09:00] and ~I ~I specifically trained on this hill hundreds of times this past year.
One day I actually climbed it 22 times. I ran what I call the Mount Carbon Marathon. That's the name of the Mount or hill or mountain. I climbed it 22 times in one day and I ended up running 26. 2 miles. So I started getting pumped. I'm like, we're on mile 53, 54. We're in single digits. There's single digit mileage between me and the finish.
I'm getting right up to the mount that I've ran up hundreds of times this year. Thousands of times in my life. Grew up biking [01:10:00] up this mountain. Or hill, whatever you want to call it. It's called Mt. Carbon. So I start picking up the pace. And I ask my trainer, ~I'm like, ~can we run up it? And she's like, no.
We're gonna power walk up it. ~We gotta, ~we gotta maintain your energy. And I'm like, okay, roger that. We power hike up it. Once we get to the top, we start running down. I know that the halfway mark aid station is at the other side of Mt. Carbon. I know that. It's at the bottom. That signifies that we're halfway through the lap.
So as we are about to enter this aid station, I tell my coach, ~I'm like, ~Hey, we should definitely go in there. I need some salt refuel. I want to cool off, pour some more cold water on myself. Great. That's what we'll do. We're about to get to the aid station. And this guy ~that ~I've been [01:11:00] chasing all day starts exiting the aid station.
I threw my entire plan out the window and told Caitlin let's skip the aid station. And she said, we can do that. We might be cutting it close. We don't want you to run out of water or salt, but we can do that. We're going to have to hit the next aid station. I'm like, great. So we skipped the aid station.
Well, I go, I run in. Get my clocked checkpoint, and then we start going after first place male. She tells me, we're gonna catch him. We've ~been gaining on him all day. She tells me, we're gonna catch him. You've ~been gaining on him all day. We're gonna hold our pace. Once we catch him, we're gonna put a gap.
And then, we're gonna make the gap real big. I'm like, okay, let's do it. We catch him within a [01:12:00] mile of that aid station, running uphill. ~We ~We put a gap at that time. She clocked how fast he was going. She's like, okay, he's doing about a 12 minute mile. So in order to put a gap, we need to run about a 10 minute, maybe a little bit of a sub 10 minute mile.
At this point, my watch has died and I don't even know what ~the heck ~we're doing. She's just telling me what to do. I don't know how fast I'm running. So we pass him. We go through the final three river crossings. Yeah. There's 15, 5 laps, 3 river crossings per lap, 15 river crossings, and then we just hold a 9 and a half to 10 minute mile pace for the next 3 miles as we get into the next aid station.
Katelyn tells me we have to hit this aid station. ~It was tempting to not, ~it was tempting to skip it, you know, at this point I'm in first place male, [01:13:00] who knows if I can catch first place overall or not, I didn't think I could because she was an hour ahead of me before we started this lap. But it was tempting.
It was tempting to skip the aid station. But I also knew that I needed salt, and I really did not want to burn out in the last three, three and a half miles and get caught. She also didn't want to get caught at the aid station. So she's like, Hey, we've put at least five minutes, maybe 10 minutes between us and second place male.
We'll go to the same station, be real quick and we'll keep going. ~I'm like, okay. ~We're at the aid station for less than a minute. Yep. We keep going, about three and a half miles left in the race, we keep pushing, we get about a mile and a half out, and that's when my brain kicked on, or kicked off, depending on how you look at it, and I started sprinting as fast as I could for the last mile and a half.
I did about a seven minute [01:14:00] mile for the last mile, mile and a half of the race, finished first place overall male. Second place overall and I only lost to first place by 35 minutes. So I had cut her lead down by about half an hour in that last lap. I ran the fastest fifth lap of anyone in the field for the 100k.
And I finished the 100k in just over 12 hours. I visualized, I prepared, I beat my 50 mile personal record by three and a half hours. The previous year it took me 13 hours to run 50 miles this year before even running an extra 12 and a half miles. I ran a nine and a half hour, 50 mile race. I was emotional.
As of recording this video is my [01:15:00] biggest athletic achievement of my life. ~I did it. I was able to do it because of these~
~ ~I was able to do it because of ~these four things and ~these four things I have learned over my entire life as an athlete with asthma. And I learned within the last year going from never racing again, never running even a marathon again, Winning first place male, second place overall at the Bear Chase Race Series 100K.
First thing I learned, preparation. Preparation is everything. Once you have set your goal, whatever it is, could be a goal in life, could be an athletic goal, could be, I'm going to play an entire soccer game. Well, if you're going to play an entire soccer game and you have asthma, You better be prepared for it.
First of all, you better have your inhaler with you. Second of all, you better work [01:16:00] towards playing that entire soccer game. If you're gonna run a 100K race, if you're gonna try and place in any type of race, you gotta think, where do you lose time? Well, what I learned when I first started climbing 14ers is, it was the people that just kept going and not stopping that finished the 14ers first.
Same thing here. If you're going to stop less or you're going to spend less time at stops, you're going to be faster. So we cut as much time as possible between every lap by having a team. And that's my ~second, ~second thing I learned is you always need to have a team. And every sport is a team sport. Even yoga, even running, ~even yoga, ~even biking.
Any sport that you [01:17:00] don't think is a team sport is a team sport. Life is a team sport. We're all in this together. ~And, uh, ~your success is dependent on your team. The better your team, the better your success. You know how they say, you are the average of the five people you spend the most ~of your ~time with?
Well, you are the average of the five people on your team. Your success is based on your team. My team was not only the most supportive team I've ever had, led by Tatiana, my team had some of the best runners I've ever met. and the best professionals that serve runners between physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractor, et cetera.
My doctors that helped me get through my CRVO and who are helping me with my PFO, my hole [01:18:00] my heart,~ your team ~without a team, I would not have won this race. The second place guy did not have a team physically there with him. I am in disbelief how strong he did without a support crew there.
Well done. Amazing. I would not have beat him without my support crew. Without my team. Number three. Consistency and progressive overload. These two things go hand in hand, ~because ~you can be consistent and not get any better. But if you are consistent and ~you ~progressively get better every single time, 1 percent better, ~just a little bit of, ~or even half a percent better, you will be successful.
That's how I went from being told I would never play soccer to playing entire games and weekends where I would have five, six, seven [01:19:00] games in one weekend.~ That's how I went from running a 50 mile race. ~That's how I went from running a marathon in 5 hours to running a 50 mile race in 13 hours to running a 100k race in 12 hours and winning.
Progressive overload. Progressively getting better. Progressively stretching your capabilities. Every single time you go out there and do whatever you do. And the last one is resilience. Resilience. Life is Very hard. We go through some really low lows in life. We lose people. We deal with our own health issues, finance issues, personal issues.
It is really tough. As an athlete, ~we deal with, ~I've had asthma since birth. I didn't know until I was 33 years old, but I've had a PFO, a hole in my heart since [01:20:00] birth. I lost vision completely in my right eye in April of 2023 and It's never gonna be 100 percent back. I'm at about 98, 99 percent though.
Injuries like a knee injury, an ankle injury. In order to be a successful ultra runner, or runner, athlete with asthma, you gotta be resilient. You gotta know that what you're pushing through today,
the hard workout today, the. excruciating run today by finishing that. That's going to prep you for an easier run tomorrow. I walked just fine after my 100k this year. I felt completely different than I did after my 50 miler and I'm ready for more. I'm not sure what that [01:21:00] looks like yet. I have some ideas.
I'm looking at running a four to four and a half hour 50k. I want to get a lot faster. I'm looking at running a 9 hour 50 miler. And most importantly, I'm figuring out how to take running seriously, even more seriously in my life while being an outstanding partner to my life partner, Tatiana. That is my biggest goal, is how do I do this?
How do I do what I love doing? How do I take running to the next level? Well, having all these other amazing things in my life, like my life partner, our dog, our family, keeping that in an outstanding level, because I don't want to just be good at these things. I want to be outstanding at these things. [01:22:00] And you know what?
I know exactly how to do it.~ Having an outstanding team. And you know what? I know exactly how to do it. ~Preparation. Having an outstanding team. Consistency and progressively getting better and resilience. Appreciate you sticking with me today. I do have a free gift for you. It's my three pillars of healthy living guide.
You can gain access to that link below this video. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to this, you'll find it. See the link in the show notes. You can also go to www. athletewithasthma. com forward slash healthy living. Dash living dash guide to get your healthy living guide today. I go through exactly what I used to go from weighing [01:23:00] 195 plus pounds all the way down to 150, 155 pounds and I've kept off the weight and ~I've ~lived a much healthier life since integrating these three pillars of healthy living.
So definitely go grab that and I'll see you in the next one.
Thanks for tuning in to the athlete with asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's [01:24:00] possible.
